Archive for the ‘Asthma’ Category

Third, the questionnaire was administered to parents and not to children. Children might have been more aware of their symptomatic status. However, Fitzgerald and colleagues recently showed that there was a high agreement between asthma questionnaires administered to parents and children. Fourth, asymptomatic AHR is a well-recognized situation as recently reviewed by Jansen et al; […]

Our study group of 84 children assessed for AHR was generally representative of the 254 children who were currently symptomatic or had ever been symptomatic during the 6-year period except that they had fewer symptoms. Other studies that were cross-sectional surveys examined symptoms and AHR in children, adolescents, and young adults. They observed that the […]

Among the 82 children with AHR at follow-up, 78% had current symptoms suggestive of asthma, When grouping the children with the two highest scores, 35 of 40 children (87.5%) had a PC20 < 2 mg/mL, whereas a similar proportion of 83.3% was found among children in the other three categories reflecting mild or no asthma. As many […]

Figure 1 shows individual results of PC20 according to baseline FEV1 and symptomatic status. Airway responsiveness could not be estimated in four children; two had a baseline FEV1 < 70% predicted, one was unable to perform the test. and the other had a hyperventilation reaction. FEV1 values (mean ± SD) in the five categories of […]

The data on health history were obtained separately for each year during the follow-up period. The information from the most recent years was used to classify the children into five categories (see Results). Lung Function Tests Spirometry was performed with a Multispiro PC-Spirometer (Medical Equipment Designs; Laguna, CA) according to the criteria of the American […]

From 1995 to 1996, the parents of404 children (49 others were lost to follow-up and 4 refused) participated in a follow-up interview to determine the persistence of asthma 6 years after the first-time diagnosis. Of these, 254 were found eligible for assessment of AHR. This was based on the persistence of symptoms. The rationale for […]

Several studies on the natural history of asthma have been conducted since 1960. In a cohort study of 454 children, including 371 aged 7 years and 83 aged 10 years at the time of entry, McNicol and Williams found that approximately one third were still symptomatic at 21 years of age. This figure is comparable […]

The positive challenge responses found in one half of the patients tested were strongly supportive of the diagnosis, although a nonspecific effect on hyperresponsive airways could have been excluded only by similarly challenging control asthmatics with similar degrees of airway responsiveness. This was not practical in a clinical setting.